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The message to voters who were already walking away in droves is "you're right to go, he's not up to it".

But there's an even more damaging number to consider if you're Abbott. Assuming his 41-strong ministry and party whips held together and voted in favour of the leadership (as Abbott and his backers demanded they must by convention), then near enough to 60 per cent of his backbench has abandoned him.

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And from that devastating reality, one can conclude that if ministers had been granted a genuinely free vote, Abbott would have already lost.

Abbott must now front the Parliament today and sell a dubious hamfisted program, already blocked in the Senate, as if his government is on top of its game and entirely united in purpose. In short, he must act as if nothing has happened. But it has, and Abbott and the world know it.

This now, is a prime minister who leads in name only and governs with a sword of Damocles hanging over his head.

If he survives for any length of time, his fate will be determined by opinion polls to which he will be hostage. This is no way to formulate policy, and a natural enemy of reform.

For its part, the Labor opposition confronts a government which, far from commanding an enthusiastic majority on the floor of the House of Representatives, is held together with the political equivalent of gaffer tape.

Ministers will start positioning for what comes next and that too spells disunity.

A scheduled Liberal party room meeting tomorrow looms now a possible venue for another explosive development. Sound far-fetched? It is.

But the parallels with history are stunning. In late 2009, the man who is now almost certain to lead the government to the next election, Malcolm Turnbull also weathered a spill motion which had been called. He survived that crisis yet by the end of that same week, as events cascaded, Turnbull was gone - replaced, in a surprise outcome by one Tony Abbott.